


Simple Questions

by Echo



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, The Doctor (Doctor Who) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28690644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echo/pseuds/Echo
Summary: An alternative rescue for the start of "Revolution of the Daleks", in which Jack takes care of the Doctor and gives her some space to talk... In a very Jack kind of way.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Jack Harkness, Thirteenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Comments: 10
Kudos: 86





	Simple Questions

The Doctor looked more like a pile of laundry than a person. Best as Jack could tell, she had found every item of fabric on the ship; towels, blankets, clothing; and had assembled them into a soft fortress of warmth around herself atop Jack's bunk. 

At least she seemed more alert now than she had when he had first plucked her out of that facility.

"I'd offer you a towel for your hair," Jack began, "but I suspect you've already commandeered all of them for your nest." The Doctor's hair was still wet enough that strands of it stuck to her face. The area of the jail complex that had the weakest shielding had turned out to be the decontamination chamber - a overly generous term for what Jack had determined was something between shower room and torture chamber. As such, her teleportation out of there had produced a Doctor utterly soaked in a foul smelling decontamination fluid, wild eyed and frantic. It had taken several minutes to calm her enough even to remove the manacles, let alone get her out of her drenched prisoner's uniform into the tiny excuse for a bathtub that the ship offered.

"Hair's fine." The Doctor said, flicking said wet hair out of her eyes only for it to fall immediately back to the same place. Jack chuckled. Telegraphing his movements very carefully, he reached over and brushed the offending hair back behind her ear. She watched him like a hawk the entire time, but didn't flinch.

Small victories.

"Any chance I can take a look at your wrists now?" Jack asked gently, setting himself down on the bunk next to the Doctor and resting the ship's first aid kit on his knee where she could clearly see it. She had been wearing manacles when she arrived, bearing the kind of marks that implied they had not been taken off frequently.

The Doctor scowled for a moment at the request, then there was a kind of tectonic shift in the mound of blankets around her. The fabric crumpled away to reveal the requisite wrists, and a Doctor wrapped up in Jack's World War II greatcoat. It positively swam around her much smaller form, looking more than a little ridiculous on her. Jack felt both amused and deeply touched by her choice.

Jack held up a tube of antiseptic salve for her judgement. "Safe?" he checked, and after a few moments of scrutiny, the Doctor nodded.

Jack took first one arm, and then the other, dabbing the salve on the most damaged areas of skin, then wrapping the area thoroughly in gauze. Neither of them spoke throughout the procedure, the sound of the engines proving a background hum underscoring their breathing. When the work was complete, the Doctor immediately withdrew her hands, tucking them under her arms. Jack's brow furrowed.

"Still cold, Doc?" When he had first scooped her out of that place she had been freezing, although whether that was directly connected to the decontamination process that she had been undergoing, or simply a common thread throughout her time on the asteroid he wasn't quite certain. The Doctor's body temperature had always been cooler than Jack's own, but when he had first touched her skin after the teleport he had seriously considered that he might need to check her for frostbite.

The Doctor nodded. "Always cold. Don't really remember what it feels like to be warm."

Which answered that question for Jack at least. He offered her one of his famous grins, and raised one arm up to just above shoulder height. "Now that sounds like something I can help with," he joked.

The Doctor blinked owlishly at him. "What are you doing that for?" She asked, staring at the arm bemused. Jack chuckled.

"It's an invitation, Doc. Lean in, I've got body heat to spare."

The Doctor's eyes widened for a moment in surprise, then for the briefest of moments she seemed indecisive, before coming to a conclusion. She wriggled over on the bed a few centimetres, then curled herself stiffly into Jack's side. Jack settled his arm around her shoulders, nudging her head down to rest on his clavicle. It took a few minutes, but soon a combination of fatigue and the genuine desire to steal some of his warmth won out and she moulded herself more comfortably to him. Jack rested his cheek on her still-damp hair, and very subtly rocked the two of them from side to side.

They sat there for quite some time, until Jack started to suspect that the Doctor had actually fallen asleep. He was startled then, when she spoke.

"You have questions." Her words were slightly muffled, due to the fact that her face was still squished up against the collar of his coat. Jack rubbed her shoulder with his thumb.

"I've always got questions, Doc, but I'm in no hurry for answers. We've got the time in the world, right now."

The Doctor took a breath deep enough to fill her lungs, then let it seep out slowly. A fortifying breath. She drew away from him then, staring deliberately at a badly scraped patch of steel near the door.

"I s'pose you do at that. But you can ask. After everything you... I... You've earned it."

Jack's eyebrow lifted almost of its own accord. "Doc, it's okay. I mean it. You're tired. It's been a busy day. We're in no hurry here."

The Doctor glanced back at him for a fraction of a second, then looked away again. For a moment, Jack felt a spike of hurt, reminded of those first few moments on Malcassairo when the Doctor struggled to even look at him without baulking at his wrongness.

But this was different... Not disgust, or even guilt. It took Jack a moment to place it, the expression so unlike his experience of the Doctor. But there it was. Fear.

"Ask." The Doctor said again, a tinge of anxiety leaking through even that single syllable. "I'll tell you the truth, as best as I can."

Her fingers twisted themselves tighter into the fabric of the coat. Jack had to make a conscious effort not to reach out and take that hand between his own, to disentangle her from the fabric and offer her the warmth of a human grip in its place. But she had actively pulled away from him, and without knowing what was going on he wasn't about to push.

"What, anything at all?" Jack asked eventually, trying to gauge her mood, and her mind. She seemed to consider this a little more carefully.

"Nothing that would risk the timeline. Nothing about your future, or..." She trailed off, momentarily lost somewhere in her head, then startled back to herself. "But other than that, yes. Honesty. Best I can."

Jack nudged her gently with his shoulder. "And is this just a one-question situation," he laced his words with a gentle humour, "or is this one of those magic genie, three wishes type arrangements?"

The Doctor huffed out a breath of air, an echo of that amused frustration that Jack had always delighted in provoking from her earlier regenerations. "Fine," she said, still deliberately looking away, "fine, let's start with one, then I'll decide if you deserve a second." Jack could almost hear the distant echo of an eye roll in her voice though, heard and felt it, sharp and expansive in his chest. 

"So many questions to choose from..." Jack mused, trying desperately to figure out what question she needed him to ask. Damn Time Lords and their perpetually cryptic nature. Then, quietly, sneaking up from the depths of his mind, a question presented itself.

"Well?" She prompted. 

Jack smirked, "Remember, you promised to answer honestly."

The Doctor nodded again, growing more and more tense by the moment.

"Okay," Jack said, barely withholding his own amusement, "one question. Always wanted to know. How come you have nipples?"

For several seconds, the Doctor seemed completely frozen, not even breathing. Then, for the first time since she had pulled away from Jack's embrace, she looked directly at him.

"What?" She asked, completely bewildered.

"Nipples," reiterated Jack, grinning broadly, "I mean, I know the logic of nipples on humans. Side effect of evolving from a common mammalian ancestor. But you didn't evolve on Earth. Bipedalism, sure, it's a handy shape, logical evolutionary quirk. But nipples, that seems pretty specific. Do all Time Lords have nipples? Or did you just... Decide to have nipples when you regenerated?"

"Can you please stop saying the word 'nipples'?" The Doctor snipped, but Jack was pleased to see that some of the tension had already begun to ease from her shoulders.

"Why? It's a perfectly good word... Rolls right off the tongue. _Nipple_." He rolled the 'n', then strung out the remaining syllables, ending in a playful wink.

The Doctor sighed, slouching a bit in her spot and rolling her eyes. "Here's me, offering you the keys to understanding time and space, and all you want to know about is anatomy."

Jack laughed and winked again. "Anatomy happens to be a topic of lifelong personal interest for me."

The Doctor shook her head in despairing amusement, quickly giving in to her own, somewhat exhausted laughter. Jack lifted his arm once more in invitation and she accepted easily, pressing herself back in to their earlier one-armed hug.

They sat there for a few minutes, Jack waiting for the Doctor to settle once more, then pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of her head.

"Doc, if you want to talk, just talk. You don't need to invent guessing games, or wait for me to magically figure out what the question is that you need me to ask. You just talk, whenever you're ready. I'll listen."

The Doctor sighed, a bone weary thing. "I don't know where to begin."

"Well lucky for you," Jack replied, "I'm an experienced time traveller. I'm used to stories happening out of order. Start wherever you need, I'll figure it out."

The silence reigned again for some minutes, before the Doctor eventually spoke. Her voice was small, and once again muffled by the too-large coat that she was nestled in.

"There's a natural tendency for unrelated organisms to evolve similar traits when exposed to similar pressures" she said, softly, "it's called convergent evolution. Hedgehogs, craylixes and echidnas all have predators that try to eat them, so they all independently evolve spikes. Lactation means a species can reliably feed their offspring, even if their food supply is inconsistent. Placental mammals, or their approximate equivalents, end up evolving on hundreds of different worlds."

Jack grinned, and squeezed her upper arm playfully, "Hundreds of different worlds, thousands of different species, and all of them evolving nipples..."

"All of them evolving nipples," agreed the Doctor, the gentle shake of silent laughter barely tangible to Jack through the coat. Then she stilled again, continuing in an even softer voice. "Humans, the Catkind of New Savannah, the Time Lords... and whatever species it turns out I am."

Jack took a moment to process that rather sudden shift in mood, and the implications of that last little addition.

Then, very carefully, he settled his cheek back to rest on the crown of her head, stroking her arm with his thumb.

"It's okay Doc. I'm listening."


End file.
